GEOSTRATEGIC SITUATION

Finland's military importance arises from its
geographic
position. As a small country, it poses no military threat
to its
neighbors, but at times in the past larger powers have
considered
its possession important for their security. The exposed
western
position of the tsarist capital, St. Petersburg, caused
Russian
officials to strive for control of Finland. Later, Soviet
strategists were likewise convinced that Leningrad's
security
required Finland's subjugation and therefore mounted
invasions.
In the postwar period, Finland's military importance
increased,
for developments in weapons technology and Soviet basing
policies
caused the country to figure not only in the strategic
concerns
of its giant eastern neighbor, but also in those of the
North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The region itself was peaceful. Sweden, Finland's
neighbor to
the west, was nonaligned and had a long tradition of
friendly
foreign relations. The militarily vital regions of Central
Europe
to the south were relatively distant, and they were
separated
from Finland by the Baltic Sea. In the high north, where
Finland
and Norway had a common border, Norway had prohibited
operations
by other NATO forces in peacetime, and it did not permit
nuclear
weapons or Allied bases on its territory. Denmark,
likewise part
of NATO, attached these same restrictions to its
membership in
the alliance.

Finland's military importance grew from the fact that,
although it formed--along with Sweden--a vast zone of
neutrality
between the forces of the Warsaw Pact and NATO, the
country was
adjacent to areas of crucial importance to the
superpowers. The
Soviet Union maintained its traditional watchfulness over
the
Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland, which controlled
access to
the Leningrad region with its large population and high
concentration of vital industry. Although the Soviet Union
exercised military domination over the southern shores of
these
waters, it was highly sensitive to the position of
Finland, which
occupied the northern shore and strategically significant
island
groups.

Contiguous to Finland's northern border is the Kola
Peninsula, where some of the Soviet Union's most important
military installations were located. The only part of the
Soviet
coastline providing ice-free access to the Atlantic year
round,
the peninsula's harbors served as home ports of the Soviet
northern fleet and of most of its nuclear ballistic
missile
submarines patrolling the North Atlantic. In the event of
hostilities, the Soviets would regard securing the
northern
Norwegian coast as essential to ensure that their surface
and
submarine fleets could reach the North Atlantic, where
they could
disrupt major supply routes for United States forces in
Europe.
Because of the importance of the Soviet military complexes
on the
Kola Peninsula, NATO almost certainly would have to view
them as
prime wartime targets. Also crucial to the alliance would
be
confining, in the Barents Sea, whatever Soviet naval
assets
survived attack. Thus, in the event of hostilities, the
superpowers would commit considerable military resources
to this
region.

The official Finnish view held that the country was
unlikely
to be the victim of an isolated attack upon its territory,
but
rather that any military action directed against Finland
would
almost certainly have to be part of a wider conflict
between East
and West. Finnish military planners did not regard their
country
as having strategic targets justifying military
aggression, but
they believed that foreign powers might try to seize
Finnish
territory to use it as a transit route to reach essential
targets.

Thus, Finnish Lapland was regarded as a possible
invasion
route for either NATO forces aiming at the Murmansk area
or
Soviet forces seeking to occupy northern Norway. For the
Allies,
however, the difficulties of mounting a land attack across
northern Scandinavia against Soviet military bases would
be
enormous. For this reason, military analysts judged that
NATO
operations in the area would more likely be air-based and
seabased .

Finnish strategists had traditionally regarded the wide
buffer zone formed by Finnish and Swedish air space as a
deterrent to attack, because it increased the flight time
of
attacking aircraft to potential targets and thereby
reduced the
operational time in the target area. Since the deployment
of
cruise missiles in the 1980s, however, there has been a
threat to
the inviolability of Finnish air space that did not
require
intrusions on its land and sea territories. Soviet
sensitivity
over the cruise missile threat underscored the
significance of
this problem.

Military planners considered southern Finland and the
Aland
Islands to be lesser strategic areas, except in the event
of a
Soviet move against southern Norway through Sweden, and
they saw
a NATO thrust against Leningrad through the Baltic Sea as
implausible. Such an operation would necessitate control
of the
Danish Straits and of the constricted Baltic itself
against
strong Soviet land, naval, and air forces. Finland was,
however,
obliged by treaty to secure the Aland Islands in the event
of war
to prevent their military use by other powers. This
obligation
underscored another aspect of Finland's defense
environment. War
between the power blocs could well mean a preemptive
attack on
Finland to secure it and to prevent use of its territory
by the
enemy.

Although Finnish strategists did not publicly emphasize
the
military threat represented by the Soviet Union, it was
evident
that the strong Soviet military presence near their shared
border, 1,200 kilometers in length, was a prime source of
concern. According to a study by the United States
Department of
Defense in 1988, Soviet conventional forces assigned to
the
Northwestern Theater of Military Operations, an area that
included Finland, consisted of 12 divisions, 1,350 tanks,
and 160
tactical aircraft. Although not at full strength, these
ground
forces could be mobilized quickly for a drive into
southern
Finland as a preemptive move to deepen Soviet defenses of
Leningrad and adjacent areas in a crisis situation.

Another contingency that Finnish planners needed to
anticipate was the crossing of northern Finland by Soviet
land
forces as part of an attack aimed at securing the coast of
northern Norway and thereby controlling the sea approaches
to the
Kola military complex. In the Pentagon's judgment, Soviet
operations were likely to include a thrust against
northern
Norway in which ground forces, supported by land-based air
and
naval amphibious forces, would try to seize critical
airfields
and to destroy early warning installations. The ground
forces
balance significantly favored the Soviets in this area,
and
probably the air force balance did as well. Such an
operation
would, nevertheless, be extremely arduous in view of the
paucity
of east-west road links and the austere climate and
terrain.

If Finland is unlucky in its strategic location, as a
theater
of war, its physical characteristics present exceptional
conditions that heavily favor a defending army. Only a few
regions are conducive to the maneuvering of modern ground
forces.
These are primarily in the coastal areas of southern,
southwestern, and western Finland, where the main
administrative
and industrial centers, a majority of the population, and
the
most highly developed transport networks are located. The
vast
regions of central and eastern Finland are areas of
rivers,
lakes, and forests. With swamps covering as much as 50
percent to
60 percent of some parts of this territory, military
operations
would be constricted to the few roads
(see Geography
, ch. 2;
Transportation and Communications
, ch. 3). Even specially
designed rough-terrain vehicles would be greatly hampered
in
these areas.

In Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, climatic
conditions are
especially severe. Beginning in November, the long Arctic
night
hampers winter activity. Frost, snow, and cold (-30°C to
-35°C)
can paralyze the operations of large bodies of troops and
their
air support, unless they are specially trained and
equipped. In
mountainous parts of Lapland, ground operations would also
be
forced in the direction of the few routes through passes,
and the
more open northern regions provide little cover for ground
forces.

An attack on Finland by sea would be severely hampered
by the
jagged coastline of shallow bays, rocks, and clusters of
islands.
The few narrow ship passages would be heavily defended by
modern
coast artillery emplaced on cliffs, by highly maneuverable
missile boats, and by extensive minefields. The thick ice
cover
would virtually preclude the winter operation of warships
near
Finnish territorial waters.

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